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From Black and White to Duotones
Last week, I touched on the idea of creating selenium or other split toned versions while discussing various options to enhance your black and white images. Of course, as you might expect, there's more than one way to do everything in Photoshop and duotones are no exception. And as you might also expect at this point, I'd be remiss if I didn't spend time this week covering duotone alternatives.
Photoshop does have an official Duotone mode but I don't use it much myself. As a general rule, I am in favor of editing techniques that preserve the underlying image data unaltered and actual Duotone conversion requires that your image first be flattened and converted to Grayscale. Unlike the alternatives, there's no going back to color from a true Duotone.
First, let me describe some of the various methods that allow you to retain your image layers and data, and then I'll present some examples to help things make sense. At the end, I'll talk about Photoshop's Duotone mode.
Colorized Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer
To recap the method I described last week, after editing your image in color as normal, add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer on top of everything. When the dialog opens, check the "Colorize" box in the lower right hand corner. Then, lower the Saturation to around five percent and slide the Hue slider across the spectrum to find the color you like. Feel free to tweak all three sliders to taste.
RGB Curves or Levels Adjustment Layer
For an alternative that can give you improved control of contrast, try adding a Curves Adjustment Layer instead of Hue/Saturation. Rather than adjusting the composite RGB channel as you might normally though, select each of the Red, Green and Blue channels individually and adjust as desired. Try dragging the Red curve upwards and the Blue curve downwards for a gold toned version.
You can do the same thing with a Levels Adjustment Layer with slightly less control. Move the middle slider for each channel left or right to emphasize or de-emphasize that channel. The color you will get will depend on the interaction of all three channels.
Gradient Map Adjustment Layer
Set your Background color in the Tools Palette to black and the Foreground color to your desired hue, or set each to a different non-black color. Then create a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer on top of your image. For more exotic effects, select one of the other gradients in the drop down list. To edit the gradient before using it, click on the color swatch and the Gradient Editor will open (not shown here).
Options Galore
With each of the above, you can create a vast number of variations, not only by changing the colors you select, but also by modifying the Blending Mode of the Adjustment Layer involved. "Normal" may sound normal, but "Multiply," "Color Burn," and "Overlay" often produce better looking results, so long as you adjust the Opacity as well.
| An example done with a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer: |
Colorized with Hue/Saturation layer |
Hue/Saturation settings used |
Blend Mode and Opacity used |
| An example done with a Curves Adjustment Layer: |
Colorized with Curves layer |
Curves settings used. Green is unchanged. |
Blend Mode and Opacity used |
| An example done with a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer: |
Colorized with Gradient Map layer |
Gradient Map settings used (foreground to background colors) |
Blend Mode and Opacity used |
| Another example done with a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer: |
A more exotic Gradient Map version |
Gradient Map settings used (one of the presets) |
Blend Mode and Opacity used |
Photoshop's Actual Duotone Mode
The actual Duotone Mode built into Photoshop was designed to facilitate commercial printing needs so some of the terminology such as "PANTONE" and "process colors" might seem confusing to the casual user. Don't let it bother you though since these distinctions don't matter for typical home use.
To create a true Duotone, first create a Channel Mixer layer to achieve the black and white look you want or use your own preferred black and white conversion method. Then, flatten your image and use Image >> Mode >> Grayscale to convert it to a single-channel grayscale image. If you don't flatten the image before going to grayscale, Photoshop will warn you that your adjustment layer will be discarded in the conversion. Not what you want. If you get this warning, be sure to select "Flatten" instead.
Next, use Image >> Mode >> Duotone to begin the process of toning your image. You can play with the color choices yourself, but you are generally better off starting with one of the many presets Adobe thoughtfully provided. To access them, click on the "Load" button. Open the Duotones Presets folder from the resulting window. From here, you should see three folders: "Gray-Black Duotones," "PANTONE(R) Duotones," and "Process Duotones." In each, you will find a lengthy selection of presets to play with. The specific differences between each of these three types is not relevant to home inkjet printing so feel free to play around with any or all of them. Unfortunately, there's no facility to preview what each preset does, so you'll need to open them to find out. Be sure you have the Preview option checked in the Duotone Options dialog so you can see the effect of each on your image.
Once you find something you like, you can feel free to tweak the effect. The Options window has three main columns of information: A curve for each color, the color itself, and the name assigned to that color. To change colors, click on the color square itself to open the Color Libraries dialog. To control how that color is blended into the result, click on the curves icon to the left of the color. If you are familiar with Curves in Photoshop, you should be able to figure out what the Duotone Curve control does, but it is odd that Adobe chose not to make this identical to the regular Curves window. The grid here is fixed at ten divisions on each axis. To the right of the grid is a table allowing direct entry of what the resulting value should be across the range of input values in ten percent increments. Thus, each entry box on the right corresponds to one of the vertical lines in the grid. Click on "OK" to return to the Duotone Options window.
When you finish setting your Duotone options, click "OK" to complete the creation of your duotone. The results will be applied immediately to your image. If you mess up the Duotone Options to the point you wish you could start over, simply hold down the Alt/Option key and the "Cancel" button will turn into a "Reset" button. Click it instead of "OK" and the Options dialog will revert to its default state.
If you master duotones, Photoshop also supports Tritones (three colors) and Quadtones (four colors). Simply select how many colors you want to work with from the Duotone Options drop-down list.
Photoshop's own Duotone dialog |
Duotone dialog in Quadtone mode |
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Duotone Curve dialog |
Color Libraries dialog |
Personally, I find it sufficient to work with the alternatives to "real" Duotones. I can save them right along with the color image they pertain to and simply turn them off using the eyeball icon next to the associated Adjustment Layer. A given color image can in fact have any number of black and white and duotone layers saved with it without getting in the way of the color data for the image itself since all these extra layers are Adjustment Layers.
Regardless of how you go about it, the possibilities for re-interpreting your existing color images in black and white and duotones is endless. There's no way I can cover every possibility here so start with your own favorite images and see what you can do with them. Or pick an image that may not be one of your favorites and see if you can turn it into a winner.
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